If it doesn't get one, it may be forced to "go to war with the destroyers it has -- not the destroyers it might want or wish to have at a later time."

The U.S. Navy is not a very flexible force.

Out of 275 ships on the Navy's "Battle Forces" list, fully 23% of the Navy's ships are Arleigh Burke-class "destroyers," and 25% are nuclear submarines. Throw in a few Ticonderoga-class cruisers (8% of the fleet) and 10 operational aircraft carriers (4%), and well over half the fleet is made up of just four types of warship.

Why doesn't the Navy have a more flexible toolkit, with more types of vessels designed to tackle more specific sorts of missions? In part, it's a question of cost. More ship designs mean more expense to maintain them. In addition, when the Navy has tried to introduce new ship types to the fleet, it's sometimes been shocked to find the ships arriving over budget and behind schedule.

WNU Editor: The U.S. Navy initially expected to build 32 Zumwalt-class units .... but they are now only going to build 3. And the problem with the Arleigh Burkes class of ships is that were designed years ago, and will not be able to incorporate the weapon systems that the US Navy wants to install in the future. Faced with this dilemma .... yup .... it is time to develop a new destroyer. The big question that needs to be answered is .... will Congress allocate the money to develop and build it .... and if so, when.

A photo of President Trump grinning broadly and pumping his fist topped the Philippines’ leading newspaper on Monday after news broke that the Mr. Trump had invited President Rodrigo Duterte to the White House.

The invitation stands in sharp contrast to the friction between the populist, plain-spoken Mr. Duterte and the Obama administration. This is the latest example of Mr. Trump’s willingness to engage authoritarian leaders that President Obama kept at arm’s length.

Mr. Trump is slated to be in Manila when Mr. Duterte hosts a summit of East Asian nations. No date has been announced for Mr. Duterte’s trip to Washington.

Erdogan says more action possible against YPG fighters in Syria, insisting US support for Kurdish group must end.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said Ankara was "seriously saddened" by footage showing US military vehicles operating close to the border with Syrian Kurdish fighters, threatening further military action against a group Turkey sees as "terrorists".

His comments came amid rising tensions over the weekend along the border, with both Ankara and Washington moving armoured vehicles to the area.

French soldiers killed more than 20 militants hiding in a forest near the border between the West African countries of Mali and Burkina Faso this weekend, its regional force said in a statement.

The operation followed the death of a French soldier nearby earlier this month. It involved both air and ground strikes, the statement said, but failed to identify the militant group that was targeted.

The French forces may have also captured some of the militants alive, the AFP news agency reported citing an unnamed army official.

Mali has been regularly hit by Islamist militant violence, despite a 2013 French-led operation to drive them out of key northern cities they had seized.

China's domestically developed AG600, the world's largest amphibious aircraft, took its maiden flight ahead of schedule on Saturday from the southern city of Zhuhai, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The AG600 was designed to extinguish forest fires and carry out rescue missions at sea, Xinhua said on Saturday, adding that it could also "be used to monitor and protect the ocean."

The seaplane's maiden flight comes amid China's increasing assertiveness to its territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea where it is building airfields and deploying military equipment, rattling nerves in the Asia-Pacific region and the United States.

The U.S. Marine Corps has returned to Helmand, the restive province in southern Afghanistan where it fought years of bloody battles with the Taliban, to help train Afghan forces struggling to contain the insurgency.

Many of the 300 Marines coming to Helmand as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support training mission are veterans of previous tours in the province, where almost 1,000 coalition troops, mostly U.S. and British, were killed fighting the Taliban.

When they left in 2014, handing over the sprawling desert base they knew as Camp Leatherneck to the Afghan army, the Marines never expected to return. The fact that they are back underlines the problems Afghan forces have faced since being left to fight alone.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have advanced against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) near the armed group's stronghold in Raqqa in northern Syria, according to a monitor.

The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, now controls at least 40 percent of the town of Tabqa, and more than half of its heart, the Old City, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Sunday.

Rami Abdel Rahman, SOHR director, said fighting was continuing in the town on Sunday morning.

At least 352 civilians have been killed in U.S.-led strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since the operation began in 2014, the U.S. military said in a statement on Sunday.

The Combined Joint Task Force, in its monthly assessment of civilian casualties from the U.S. coalition's operations against the militant group, said it was still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths.

It added that 45 civilians were killed between November 2016 and March 2017. It reported 80 civilian deaths from August 2014 to the present that had not previously been announced. The report included 26 deaths from three separate strikes in March.

The military's official tally is far below those of other outside groups. Monitoring group Airwars said more than 3,000 civilians have been killed by coalition air strikes.

China's semi-official Global Times newspaper criticized an ongoing "game of chicken" between North Korea and Washington but also knocked Pyongyang's tech talents.

Early Saturday, the reclusive communist nation launched yet another missile, presumably in a new display of force amid a verbal war of words with President Donald Trump. However, the missile exploded seconds after liftoff, and officials said the failed test involved a short-range, non-nuclear missile able to hit Seoul but not Japan.

"The test's failure shows that the country's missile technology is not mature, and that the missile-launching vehicle paraded on the Day of the Sun not long ago may have only been a mock-up," the English-language Chinese publication said in a commentary.

South Korea said the United States had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the THAAD anti-missile system, days after President Donald Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1-billion battery designed to defend against North Korea.

In a telephone call on Sunday, Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the U.S. alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia-Pacific region, the South's presidential office said.

The conversation followed another North Korean missile test-launch on Saturday which Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful, but which drew widespread international condemnation.

* A top-secret British spy plane was tracked using a £2.99 mobile phone app
* The £650 million RAF aircraft, called Rivet Joint, could be seen at 27,000ft
* Monitered as it tried to gather intelligence about a Russian base on the Baltic Sea

A top-secret British spy plane was tracked using a £2.99 mobile phone app as it flew on a daring mission to eavesdrop on Vladimir Putin’s air defences.

The £650 million RAF aircraft, called Rivet Joint, could be seen at 27,000ft as it tried to gather intelligence about a heavily defended Russian base on the Baltic Sea.

A minute-by-minute record of the highly classified mission to study the Kaliningrad naval air base was watched by hundreds of thousands of people on the internet, and details were shared on Twitter.

The Pentagon's 6th Generation Fighter may be stealthy and will likely have next-generation computers, electronic warfare technology, speed, weapons and sensors

Fighter jets in 20-years may likely contain the next-generation of stealth technoology, electronic warfare, sophisticated computer processing and algorithms, increased autonomy, hypersonic weapons and so-called "smart-skins" where sensors are built into the side of the aircraft itself.

Some of these characteristics may have been on display more than a year ago when Northrop Grumman's SuperBowl AD revealed a flashy first look at its rendering of a new 6th-generation fighter jet.

Northrop is one of a number of major defense industry manufacturers who will bid for a contract to build the new plane - when the time is right. While there are not many details available on this work, it is safe to assume Northrop is advancing concepts, technology and early design work toward this end. Boeing is also in the early phases of development of a 6th-gen design, according to a report in Defense News.

NEW YORK – The launch of China’s second aircraft carrier is an important and depressing moment for India. The Type 001A — likely to be named the Shandong — will give China an edge for the first time in the carrier race with its Asian rival, a literal 2-to-1 advantage. After decommissioning the INS Viraat earlier this year, the Indian Navy is down to a single carrier, the INS Vikramaditya. Worse, the Shandong has been built at China’s own giant shipyard at Dalian; the Vikramaditya is merely a repurposed 1980s-era Russian carrier formerly known as the Admiral Gorshkov.

Even more telling than the raw numbers is what China’s progress says about India’s ability to provide security in its own backyard. Chinese naval strategists have open designs on the Indian Ocean. According to one, “China needs two carrier strike groups in the West Pacific Ocean and two in the Indian Ocean.”

China is building a factory so big that when it's done, it will be able to accommodate the construction of four submarines at once—out of sight from military enthusiasts and spy satellites alike.

According to Popular Science, Bohai Shipbuilding Heavy Industrial Corporation is building the plant in Huludao, Liaoning Province. The place will have two parallel assembly lines. The gigantic hall reportedly is where China will begin construction on is latest attack submarine, the Type 095.

* US Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris testified before a Senate committee
* He admitted intensive operations against ISIS have depleted stocks of bombs
* He also warned the US needed to improve anti-missile and ship defences
* Admiral Harris also told the Senate he needed a replacement for cluster bombs

The United States is running out of bombs to blast ISIS terrorists because of the number of targets getting hit, one of the country's top generals has warned.

US Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris has said he needs more munitions to keep up the intensive operations against the terror organisation in Iraq and Syria.

Admiral Harris admitted he has seen much of his inventory of munitions moved to operations against ISIS.

The Navy's new stealthy destroyer will soon fire precision rounds from its long-range deck gun and fire SM-2 missiles from its vertical launch tubes.

The Navy's new "first-of-its-kind," high-tech stealthy destroyer, armed with the most lethal weapons ever engineered onto a surface ship, is now beginning what’s called “ship activation" - a process of integrating the major systems and technologies on the ship leading up to an eventual live-fire exercise of its guns and missiles.

As part of this process, the Navy will eventually fire long-range precision guns and missiles from its lethal, stealthy new destroyer -- in anticipation of its ultimate deployment on the open seas, service and industry officials explained.

The new destroyer, called the USS Zumwalt, is a 610-foot land and surface warfare attack ship designed with a stealthy, wave-piercing “tumblehome” hull.

* Robert O'Neill, the former Navy SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden, describes the moment he pulled the trigger and shot the world's most wanted man in the head
* His new memoir The Operator, recounts his distinguished career fighting in more than 400 separate combat missions
* The book, released earlier this week, details the historic night in 2011 he stormed the high-security compound in Abbottobad, Pakistan

The Navy SEAL who said he killed Osama Bin Laden has described the moment he pulled the trigger and shot the world's most wanted man in the head.

Robert O'Neill, 41, a decorated veteran who fought in more than 400 separate combat missions, recounted his distinguished career in his new memoir The Operator.

The new book details the historic night in 2011 he stormed the high-security compound in Abbottobad, Pakistan.

As signs began to suggest the leader of al-Qaeda was indeed inside, O'Neill reminded himself to savor the moment knowing it was likely he wouldn't make it out alive.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, right, looks on as Canadian Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner talks with U.S. Maj.-Gen. James Terry in this 2010 photo. Sajjan was serving his third tour in Afghanistan at the time. (Murray Brewster/CBC)

More News On The Canadians Defense Minister Apologising For Embellishing His Role In A Key Afghan Battle

Top Navy leaders continue to insist they need a fleet of 355 ships to carry out contingency operations around the globe. But at the same time, they are looking forward to a near future where the number of gray hulls may not be the best way to measure naval strength.

In coming weeks, the Navy will release a document laying out what leaders see as the future of the service, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said during a discussion at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. It will discuss not only how to pursue a fleet ramp-up in a cash-strapped reality, but also how innovation can allow the service to get more capability out of available platforms.

WNU Editor: Today's naval platforms are far more lethal than their predecessors decades ago .... so you do less than what you needed decades ago to fulfil a mission. But the ocean is a big place .... and you do need to ships to be at the places where they are deemed to be critical to be there .... and for today's US Navy they must now be everywhere .... The U.S. Navy Must Be Everywhere at Once (John Lehman, Wall Street Journal).

* The 1992 JFK Assassination Records Collection Act set at 25-year timetable for declassification of assassination records dealing with President Kennedy
* The law grants sole power to the president to stop declassification
* A White House official said it was working with the National Archives on a smooth release of documents
* Trump has touted multiple conspiracy theories – and during the campaign brought up a National Enquirer Story that claimed the father of Ted Cruz was pictured with Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald

He has floated some conspiracy theories for years, but now President Donald Trump will get to play a crucial role in the long-running saga over the government's Kennedy assassination records.
The 1992 JFK Assassination Records Collection Act, signed by President George H.W. Bush, set a 25-year timetable for declassification of assassination records dealing with President Kennedy.
The law set up a single collection of records at the National Archives, and set up a process for declassification. The law required the release of all government records dealing with the assassination within 25 years – with the exception of those the president certifies for postponed release.

Unlike the U.S., nuclear forces are Russia’s highest military priority. In December 2016, President Putin declared Russia is “stronger than any potential aggressor,” has modernized almost 60% of its strategic forces and directed that Russia further strengthen its nuclear Triad.[1] In March 2017, he said that modernizing Russian military forces “concerns the strategic nuclear forces, above all.”[2] In January 2017, Russian Defense Minister General of the Army Sergei Shoigu stated that development of the strategic nuclear force was Russia’s first priority, noting Russia will “continue a massive program of nuclear rearmament, deploying modern ICBMs on land and sea, [and] modernizing the strategic bomber force.”

Saturday, April 29, 2017

* The Russian army has been testing a remote-controlled tank at a military base
* A video shows the unmanned robot scaling hills, dusty paths and flows of water
* At the end of the footage the tank, named The Vikhr, fires from its 30 mm gun
* A report from the SIPRI found that Russia is the third biggest military spender

The Russian army has been putting one of the world's biggest military robots through its paces, acting as a further reminder of Russia's increasing military strength.

The Vikhr remote-controlled tank was being tested on a military testing ground at a classified location in Russia.

The clips shows the unmanned tank traveling through a dusty path, navigating through stretches of water and then firing into the distance from its machine gun, all without a human in sight.

ARMY WAR COLLEGE: The brutal ground war in Iraq holds vital lessons for sophisticated future operations in the Pacific, Australian Maj. Gen. Roger Noble said today. Military pundits often draw a sharp distinction between what they consider low-tech warfare against irregular forces, as in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, and high-tech war against states like China and Russia. But when Noble went from a tour in Iraq last year to the Hawaii headquarters of US Army Pacific, he said, the cutting-edge concepts of Multi-Domain Battle that USARPAC is experimenting with forcefully reminded him of coalition operations against Daesh, the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

“Last year, we saw the future,” Noble told the Army War College here. “We came back and read Multi-Domain Battle (and thought) ‘we saw version 1.0 in Iraq.'”

WNU Editor: History is full of examples of successful military operations where combined arms operations were the rule. Case in point .... an infantry squad facing a similar foe in a battle will be facing a stalemate, but backed with air-power, drones, artillery, and an armoured unit .... such a squad will be a formidable force that can easily break such a stalemate

Moscow is eager to resume cooperation with Washington on solving the Syrian crisis, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said during his meeting with his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi, in the Russian capital.

During the meeting, Lavrov noted that Jordan’s King Abdullah II has repeatedly emphasized the importance of joint Russian-American efforts in Syria.

“I can assure that we’re fully ready for this. We count on Washington to demonstrate the same approach,” he said.

WNU Editor: The U.S. has (so far) shown no interest to cooperate with Russia on Syria. My prediction .... there will be no discussion on cooperation until after Mosul is recaptured and the Islamic State has been driven out of Iraq.

China is keeping close communication with Russia with the increased friction over neighbor North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and hopes to continue to do so, state news agency Xinhua reports.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov on Thursday to discuss Pyongyang’s continued political stand off with the U.S. and its allies in the Asia Pacific region, ahead of a UN Security Council ministerial meeting on the matter.

Both Russian and Chinese military equipment reportedly amassed on each country’s respective border with North Korea, earlier this month. Each country denied the military build up was linked to the increasingly deteriorating relations between Pyongyang and Washington that has been happening at the same time.

WNU Editor: If there are two countries that can change the dynamics on the Korean peninsula overnight .... it is China and Russia. For the moment they want a return to the status quo .... but if there is one thing that we have learned in the past month .... both countries have limited contact with the North Korean leadership. My prediction .... if North Korea continues conducting missile tests as well as a nuclear test or two .... both China and Russia will change their approach towards North Korea. What happens after that will be anyone's guess.

* US confirmed that North Korea has carried out a non-nuclear missile launch
* Launch comes just hours after the county announced it was 'on the brink of nuclear war' as the United States stages military drills with South Korea
* The mid-range KN-17 ballistic missile was fired from a location in the South Pyeongan province in the early hours of Saturday local time
* It failed to reach the Sea of Japan but instead blew up above land
* President Donald Trump said the missile test 'disrespected the wishes of China'
* The USS Carl Vinson, US super aircraft carrier, was spotted sailing north towards North Korea in a show of force on Saturday, local time

A US warship is heading towards North Korea after Kim Jong Un carried out yet another failed missile launch.

The USS Carl Vinson, US super aircraft carrier, was spotted sailing north offshore Nagasaki, Japan on Saturday local time, in a show of force after North Korea's latest test-fire flop.

A US official said the ballistic missile, thought to be a mid-range KN-17, was fired from a location in the South Pyeongan province in the early hours of Saturday morning local time. It blew up over land before it ever reached its target of the Sea of Japan, landing around 22 miles from Pukchang airfield, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

It flew for several minutes and reached a maximum height of 44 miles before it apparently failed.

WNU Editor: Some are not happy with President Trump's tweet .... Sen. Chris Coons slams Trump's North Korea tweet: "This is no longer reality TV"(CNN). As to what is my take. Knowing the Chinese like I do .... they do appreciate President Trump's tweet, and I also know that with each North Korean threat, missile test, and preparations for a nuclear test .... support within China for the "hermit kingdom" is decreasing with each passing day. But the Chinese .... like everyone else in the region (and in the White House) know that North Korea is going to be along term problem. There are no easy solutions .... but President Trump has definitely changed the narrative on what to do with Kim Jong-Un, and on this issue he has wide support throughout Asia.

More News On President Trump's Tweet That North Korea 'Disrespected' China With Their Missile Test

A Spanish warship entered Gibraltar’s territorial waters early on Saturday morning, just hours before a meeting of European Union leaders approved their guidelines for negotiating a Brexit deal with the United Kingdom that allows Spain to veto its application to the Rock.

At around 9am the Spanish corvette ‘Cazadora’ entered waters off Gibraltar, where Royal Navy and local police launches sailed out to meet it.

According to observers, the corvette was escorted southward out of the Bay of Gibraltar, ending what was the third such incursion by Spanish warships this month.

Public transportation, schools and banks were closed across much of Brazil as unions led nationwide strikes to protest austerity measures.

Millions of people stayed home Friday, either by choice or because they could not get to work. Thousands of others came out onto the streets to protest and block roads.

In one of the largest demonstrations, thousands of people gathered in front of Rio de Janeiro’s state assembly and clashed with police who tried to remove them. Police fired tear gas while protesters threw stones.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Late in the morning on Monday, April 24, protesters gathered on a patch of grass next to a pedestrian bridge in Altamira, in the eastern and wealthier half of Caracas. They were planning the latest march in a series of protests against the government of President Nicolás Maduro that have rocked the faltering country since March 20, when Venezuela’s highest court attempted to dissolve the national assembly in an effort to further weaken Maduro’s opponents.

Protestors like those gathered in Altamira have seized on Maduro’s latest show of autocracy and the country’s collapsing economy to mobilize a movement that now extends beyond the typically wealthy opposition leaders to those upon whose support Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela have long relied — the country’s poor.

About Me

I have been involved in numerous computer science projects since the 1980s, as well as developing numerous web projects since 1996.
These blogs are a summation of all the information that I read and catalog pertaining to the subjects that interest me.